Once Upon A Time In Cabramatta

Season 1Episode 1SBSJanuary 8, 2012

Once Upon a Time in Cabramatta is the story of how the Vietnamese community fought back from adversity and found their place in modern Australia. Told for the first time by the community itself, this three-part series features interviews with the youth who got caught up in gang culture, politicians and police who were involved in Cabramatta's critical moments, and the ordinary people who lived through it all - from the crime and violence, the fear and racism, a heroin epidemic and the first political assassination in Australia's history.

In this travel show with a difference, Charley Boorman attempts to travel north from Sydney up the Pacific Rim to Tokyo, using only local forms of transport. Tonight, Charley heads up the east coast of Australia with a huge biker convoy in tow. Along the way he meets unique characters, travels in a replica Spitfire, tries his hand at cattle mustering, and even gets bitten by a snake.

On Monday, 4th September 1994, John Newman, the state MP for Cabramatta, was shot dead in the driveway of his home. The first political assassination in the history of Australia leaves the Vietnamese people of Cabramatta demonised and vilified - the community and the ideals of multiculturalism itself are in tatters.

It’s 1999 and Cabramatta’s never had it so bad. Cabramatta train station is awash with junkies and dealers, many just teenagers. It’s like this everyday. Self made entrepreneurs in a local black market economy of drugs and gangland violence.

Crushed by the disappointment of not being able to get into West Papua on foot, Charley Boorman is forced to take a series of commercial flights in order to resume his journey north to Tokyo. Picking up his route in Indonesia, Charley is excited about a new country and a new adventure ahead.

Starting in the city of Kaohsiung on the south-west corner of the island of Taiwan, Charley stops at the country's largest Buddhist monastery, Fo Guang Shan. Then he heads north on board the Taiwanese high-speed rail train into the Alishan Mountains where he visits award-winning tea farmer Hsiu-Mei.